You’ve probably noticed I don’t make too many posts here. I do that in Facebook. I use Facebook as though it is my blog. I will make long posts which I will also post in the form of a Note. Which Facebook makes available under “More” on my Homepage.

COVID-19 has kept me stuck at home since the beginning. After a point, I needed to get out and go for walks. It was hard to find washroom facilities so that cramped my style a little bit. But the panorama at the top of this Page was taken during one of those walks.

When COVID-19 started, I had a hard time believing it was true. There were things going on in the United States that seemed implausible. In Europe you were hearing about right wing radicals taking over the governments. And besides all the other weird things going on in the World (China, the Middle East), I thought the right wing government had taken over and COVID-19 was an excuse to make everybody stay indoors. And everybody had bought in and were actually eager participants. Until people started threatening to block me on Facebook if I didn’t “buy in” myself.

That was very awkward and difficult. It was the end of the World as I knew it. I could refer back to books like “1984” and “Brave New World” for predictive examples. I could refer back to innumerable apocalyptic books and movies that predicted a virus or some other agent taking over the world, infecting everybody, or not quite everybody, and there was a battle for survival by the uninfected few. Movies like “Terminator” seemed to have come true. It was no longer a free world in any sense at all.

And now we are still not allowed to gather in any great numbers. In the USA there are riots going on like you would read about in books and see in apocalyptic movies. And the president was threatening to call out the armed forces to put down what appeared to be the rebellion. As the common people were protesting over police brutality and murder.

I am getting old and long in the tooth. I wonder how much longer I will be able to hold out in this world and society. I can’t go see people. If I want to see people, I will have to learn the software. I have an opportunity this evening. I had my first opportunity yesterday and it was successful. The only thing was, the day before I had to figure out how to download the new version of the software we would use or it wouldn’t come off. Somehow I succeeded.

Sitting at home so much of the time, I am not as physically able any more. Even in the early days of the COVID-19, I knew that if I was cooped up for too long, I would die of weakness due to not getting any exercise in my usual form, long walks, rather than the COVID-19. I was not afraid of the COVID-19. I would either come down with it or I would not. It would be either serious and I might die or it might be mild. But if I got weak from inactivity and died that way, the point would be moot.

I will be 72 in 1 month and 1 day, July 3. I love music. I like to take photos on my walks (see above). I follow physics, cosmology and NASA, like the recent SpaceX launch of 2 Americans from American soil astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). I follow archaeology and fossils and evolution. History and prehistory. Green issues to some extent, only it seems we are not taking these too seriously. Like one day we won’t have needed to address them in the first place or something. We are hoping technology comes along and does it for us, or something!

I write poetry. I am good at a number of things. Yet I haven’t worked for money since 1976. I get by, wth more difficulty as the years go by for more reasons than just lack of money. I used to get together with people in a number of settings. I used to go to the occasional “rock” show, about 2 a year. I am not happy with having to stay home to get most of my social interactions. I don’t want to stare at my computer endlessly for this. I am very sad. It is nice to use the new technology. Like it was something that was going to come along anyway and it has just happened now. Like we are using the bought into COVID-19 as the excuse to socialize in any manner at all. Like it was going to happen anyway, the COVID-19 imaginary, that it doesn’t exist at all, and the governments and the people are just using it to force everybody to buy into the new system, most of our interaction online. Because it was going to happen one day anyway. So we have made it “now”.

Of course, everybody who has lost people close to them, family or friends, to the COVID-19 are very extra sad right now because the COVID-19 has taken away a few more people than would normally have gone in any short time. Stay 2 meters apart. Practice social distancing. Wash your hands. Be safe. Be kind. And we shall get through this together.

Today is a new day. It’s a brave new world we face. I am sure we will get through it. Chin up, as they say. And I love you.

-George Chris Michas